Weren't these games originally designed to cater to a group of people with a broadened sense of Imagination?
Considering the origins were firmly planted on the back of wargaming, no, I do not think so.
(hence the moniker "Role-Playing Game")
Glossing over the 'game' part?
The problem I see is that you are finally being exposed to people with different creative agendas. I get it. I use to feel they were 'doing it wrong' too. Just look through some of my earlier posts.
Might I suggest some lovely rules light systems that focus on the story and less on the game? You might find more people with your shared creative agenda.
I just want to throw my support in on the 'it's a playstyle issue'. You clearly favor and flourish in an environment where things are fast and loose. You appreciate the backbone o the rules but don't like how the over-codification slows down your game.
And that's fine. There are plenty of systems catered directly that style. Even Pathfinder can be used that way if the DM and players know that's how it's being used.
I also agree that you shouldn't tell others that they're doing it wrong for liking to have solid rules upon which they can build their expectations for any given round of combat or roleplaying. It gives a sense of empowerment and a level of control of their imaginated surroundings.
I, too, fall somewhere in-between, and it has a lot to do with who's running the game as to where specifically I'll fall. As someone said earlier, if I trust the GM's ability to adjudicate, story-tell, and keep my characters heroic attempts heroic, then I'm far more likely to let them create on the fly. But even with that GM I sometimes want the comfort of consistent and predictable results.
Anyway, I don't feel I said anything too original, but there's something to be said for throwing in support.
The rules of the world prohibit it.
Yes, but few and certainly no game I want to play, has rules covering everything allowable under the principles of physics. At some point, someone is going to step outside of the book. This is why I prefer table top games over video games: a GM. Someone who can use some common sense and a basic understanding of our own world and come up with a reasonable outcome in a completely fabricated world.
I'm really lucky that I got pulled into a really good gaming group. You need to be friends first, and then the problems at the table tent to solve themselves.Do Not Play With Those People!!!That should be a big warning label on the front of all games.
I think that is normally true. I just left a group a few months ago because they are of the "PC's are heroes and must win" camp. I am not saying that is a bad thing, but it is not my cup of tea. I don't want my character to die, but being a hero is dangerous work, and if a sharp pointy object ends my existence then so be it.
The problem with telling others "Do Not Play With Those People" is that while it's generally good advice it's not always as simple as that. Sometimes these people that run games you don't care for are your friends, someone you can't seperate from or someone that you don't want to just kick aside over a game.
For instance I've mainly been playing with a large group for the last six or seven years (with a couple of short breaks and member changes) and we have a system of rotating voluteer Dungeon Masters that allows everyone a chance to play or lead if they wish. It works fine for the most part.
The problem for me, and I maybe the only one in the group that feels this way, is that two of the group have styles of Dungeon Mastering that drive me crazy. However I enjoy the group otherwise and am good friends with most of them. Heck, I even like the guy (one of the two in fact) that has told the others how much he hates me and tried to get me voted out of the group at least once.
It also doesn't hurt that if I left the group it would in essence be the end of my gaming for quite sometime since this is the only game I know of even remotely reasonably close. So when someone starts a game I don't like or they run it in a way I can't stand, I just grin and bear it until the next one starts.
The problem with telling others "Do Not Play With Those People" is that while it's generally good advice it's not always as simple as that. Sometimes these people that run games you don't care for are your friends, someone you can't seperate from or someone that you don't want to just kick aside over a game.
For instance I've mainly been playing with a large group for the last six or seven years (with a couple of short breaks and member changes) and we have a system of rotating voluteer Dungeon Masters that allows everyone a chance to play or lead if they wish. It works fine for the most part.
The problem for me, and I maybe the only one in the group that feels this way, is that two of the group have styles of Dungeon Mastering that drive me crazy. However I enjoy the group otherwise and am good friends with most of them. Heck, I even like the guy (one of the two in fact) that has told the others how much he hates me and tried to get me voted out of the group at least once.
It also doesn't hurt that if I left the group it would in essence be the end of my gaming for quite sometime since this is the only game I know of even remotely reasonably close. So when someone starts a game I don't like or they run it in a way I can't stand, I just grin and bear it until the next one starts.
Understand, though, that is your choice. If you're enjoying yourself, good, but I know if my choice was between no gaming and a bad gaming group, I'd choose no gaming every time. Why waste a 4 hour session sitting around being miserable when I could write or see a movie with my friends or play video games or something?
And everywhere I've ever gone, I've always been able to find a gaming group by just asking around. It takes time, sometimes, but it isn't impossible.
There's also the matter of being able to find online games and the like these days, which aren't exactly the same, but still fun.
There is no such thing as being forced to play with bad gamers or gamers whose play styles don't suit your own.
In the past I've tried playing a roleplaying game which was more imagination based than rules based. The game didn't even have dice: you just stated what weapon you were using and how you were using it and the GM said what sort of effect it had. It had only a bare bones stat system that listed the weapons and basic strengths and weaknesses of the vehicle you were piloting.
I ended up deciding that it wasn't for me because you really had no idea whether or not something that worked with one GM would work with another GM. How am I supposed to be able to try and think of a logical solution to a situation if there's no real set of laws that determines how reality works? Something that destroyed my opponent on one day might end up wasting a turn or getting me killed on another day.
That's why I only play games like pathfinder now. There's a set of rulebooks that I can check to see whether or not something is possible and how difficult it should be if it is possible. This isn't to say that we always do things 'by the book' because it is impossible for rules to cover EVERYTHING and there are plenty of times where I or the players in our group come up with crazy stuff. I just need the rules to cover the most common things that can happen in the game so that I know roughly how the game world works.
Just in case you're wondering, the game that I was talking about was an Instant Messenger/Forum based Zoids combat game from the site Metal Machine Music. It doesn't run anymore because Zoids has fallen in popularity.
Man, I usually don't set DCs. I just say "roll Acrobatics" and if I feel the result was good enough the character succeeds.This is the type of judgment I am referring to. I see less and less of this than I used to. Does the task seem daunting? Yes. Was the roll outrageously good? Yes. Success!!Then why have skills and skill points? Roll the dice, and if he rolls higher than a 10, he succeeds!
If you just fiat the results, then where the player puts his skills and feats don't matter and you should tell them so at the start.
That reminded me of a pet peeve of mine.... Which I shall now post about in a new thread before I get carried away here.
...and let's face it, 99% of us suck at making rules.
And published material is not immune.
Someone has a rule around here, I forget who...
"Do not play with jerks."
Solves so many problems.
Cirno's First Rule of Gaming :D
Anyways, I did play 2e long ago, back when every DM had their own binder of houserules. What did I learn? That having to relearn the entire game every time I was at a new table because the rules were insufficient on their own is a huge pain. And that having to make your own binder of houserules because you want to DM and the rules don't cut it makes you want to not DM.
I love rules lite games. A lot! But those are structured purposefully to be rules lite. A far difference from games that are accidentally rules lite, or "rules lite one you cut out all the terrible rules but then you have to seal the gaps so it's not really rules lite anymore and you aren't even really playing the game"
As I've glanced through the messageboards from time to time and as I've played with many of the gamers at my University, I have noticed an almost dogmatic need to have every action ever taken by a character defined solely by the Rules As Written. Weren't these games originally designed to cater to a group of people with a broadened sense of Imagination? Aren't the rules merely a means of smoothing over the gaps between that Imagination and the "Reality" of a fantasy world?
...
How about we get back to letting the Imagination guide how our characters do things rather than being led by a leash of RAW to the point were we can no longer make our own decisions. RPG's should grant the mind freedom, not confine it in a cage of "fear of not following the Law".
Well, when I started playing back in 198x, I was told that only thieves could climb walls and that my fighter was out of luck.
There is no "back" to get to, here.
-The Gneech
The problem with telling others "Do Not Play With Those People" is that while it's generally good advice it's not always as simple as that. Sometimes these people that run games you don't care for are your friends, someone you can't seperate from or someone that you don't want to just kick aside over a game.
For instance I've mainly been playing with a large group for the last six or seven years (with a couple of short breaks and member changes) and we have a system of rotating voluteer Dungeon Masters that allows everyone a chance to play or lead if they wish. It works fine for the most part.
The problem for me, and I maybe the only one in the group that feels this way, is that two of the group have styles of Dungeon Mastering that drive me crazy. However I enjoy the group otherwise and am good friends with most of them. Heck, I even like the guy (one of the two in fact) that has told the others how much he hates me and tried to get me voted out of the group at least once.
It also doesn't hurt that if I left the group it would in essence be the end of my gaming for quite sometime since this is the only game I know of even remotely reasonably close. So when someone starts a game I don't like or they run it in a way I can't stand, I just grin and bear it until the next one starts.
My group is pretty similar. We are friends, and we do more then just game together. With that we have different personalities and different styles. Sometimes that difference can be infuriating, but for me at least the most important part is having fun with your friends, and the style of game is waaaay secondary to that. So I can put up with plenty in the name of having fun with friends.
|
Someone actually flagged this post as a FAQ candidate. I weep for humanity.Frankly, with some of the posters on here, I'm surprised that nobody has yet begged for rules on the digestive processes of various races take, so that we can be sure to use RAW to determine when the elven ranger needs to relieve himself.
* hopes valiantly but with cynical pessimism that this doesn't inspire some fool to make said topic *
I weep for the Paizo staff member who has to look at that at least once as if it weren't an asshatted abuse of the FAQ flags.
|
I just feel sad when someone wants to do something but can't find- or there isn't- a specific rule for it.
-S
This is exactly what he's talking about. Who cares if there's not an EXACT rule for it? MAKE one up. Back in 1st edition days, the game actually flowed smoother with less rules. I could run a 8 hour game with no pre-made notes, the rules were so simple. Now, there's a DC for everything. "I want to rip off the door to the ship's cabina nd jump down on the pirates running up the stairs." "Ok, that's ahrd, so give me a bend bars lift gates" "(rolls)Riiiippp" "Ok you leap down the stair mangling several pirates under the weight of the door and scattering the rest. You all start getting up at the same time...roll init".
That happened in a game I DM'd. The next week, I tried to lift a bar-table and press two bad guys against the wall in a brawl...I had a boring assed DM who would say 'There''s no rule covering that, so you can't do it" ugh....
I don't really think anything happened to those days. They are still here, as much as they've ever been. What you see about the 'obsessive focus on rules' is the introduction of the internet, really.
Back in the day, you just had yourself and the rest of your group as reference, now you have the entire world. Your RL friends know where you're comming from. The rest of us have no idea. The uniform language of, say, a Pathfinder forum is the Pathfinder rules themselves. So naturally a place like this will have a lot of focus on it.
But I don't think there's a significant difference between today and the 'good old days'. It's just easier to get in touch with other players around the world.
This. +1
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you.
And now, an addendum. Pathfinder is a game. One game. Only one game. One among many. Pathfinder has many traits inherent to its design. These traits are different from those found in FATE or Legend of the Five Rings or Savage Worlds or Battletech.
Or OD&D.
To take Pathfinder and put it next to OD&D, then decree that games have become crunchy and stifling is like measuring the temperature at midnight and noon then declaring that we shall all be consumed by fiery death come Tuesday. Especially when you can take something newer like Minimus and deride OD&D's silly excessive crunch as archaic and oppressive.
D&D evolved. It changed. It grew. There were many paths it could choose, and it chose one. However, OD&D was not some grand, magical, exceptionally-roleplay-conducive paragon of simplicity and good design. It was just incomplete, spotty, and outright ill-conceived. Yes, it's much more rules-light and looser than Pathfinder. So's Savage Worlds. Or FATE. Or any number of games. Don't like tighter, crunchier systems? There's wave after wave of lighter-weight product out there, many of which hardly even require you to learn new rules. (Hello, Blue Rose/True20.)
Now, as to the whole "rules/imagination" debacle? Rules do not detract from imagination. Strict adherence to rules does not detract from imagination. Art is a matter of soul, not of structure (or lack thereof).
Let us take two artists. A guitarist and an architect. The guitarist must understand any number of rules and techniques- scales, chords, melody, harmony- but these are relatively few and bending or violating them is not a huge deal. He can pretty much "go with the flow," as it were. The architect, meanwhile, has a vast array of constraints to work with, starting with the physical limitations of his medium and the myriad safety requirements necessary in a building. And that's not even getting into the matters of time, budget, constructibility, material/labor availability, or client needs and functionality.
The architect's art has many, many more rules to it. However, there is not one iota less passion behind the world's finest buildings and the world's finest music. There is not one iota less imagination behind the Hagia Sophia than Rise of the Valkyries. To claim that rules are the enemy of imagination is both ignorant and inflammatory. That you prefer lighter, looser rules is perfectly fine, but there is no wretched and evil decay of the universe when one franchise took a turn towards heavier, tighter rules, nor that others enjoy those rules precisely for their weight and tightness.
I think that is normally true. I just left a group a few months ago because they are of the "PC's are heroes and must win" camp. I am not saying that is a bad thing, but it is not my cup of tea. I don't want my character to die, but being a hero is dangerous work, and if a sharp pointy object ends my existence then so be it.
Bah. Rely on luck and you're doomed. A little is nice, but ultimately, you need the grit and skill to make a good group.
Learning to work with jerks is the most basic life skill.
|
Bob the Cleric: I take a piss behind the tree.
GM: Roll a CON check.
Bob rolls a natural 1.
GM: You have failed to urinate, and your bladder ruptures. Take 1d6 CON damage and then make a Fort save vs infection.
Bob: Damn you, Pelor! Why must I always fumble urination checks?!?
[3.x/Pathfinder] "Wait! I have a feat from PHXIX/APGIX that allows a reroll!"
[4th edition] "My pissing power is reliable."
The thing is the people who complain/conflate/convex/confluf the rules are a small group of people who write shyte loads of crap constantly so it appears as though there is a lot of people with the vexing/paranoia/complaining when really its five or six people who probably don't get to game much because a) they spend all their time on the boards having a whinge about the rules or b) the type of arses that nobody wants to play with so they have a lot of time to spend on the boards complaining about the rules.
Most people are here for the fun. I'm an old timer and I don't miss the 1st Ed rules I do miss the 1st Ed style of module and adventure but Paizo gives me that + bonus material so I am happy.
If it doesn't work for me I change it drop it or forget its there.
To be honest, I would burn many of my rpg books, some of them were harmful and full of vile words that made people perform vile actions.
They are making a movie out of that one.
I kid!
|
The point is, the skills in which you have training are important, as are the number of skill points.
Not according to what Ixancoatl and Jonathon posted, IMO. They literally said 'if the number is high enough, I let it happen'. This is functionally no different than 'if you roll a 15 you succeed, if you roll a 5 it doesn't'. It doesn't matter how many skill points you put in, if the end number isn't impressive enough to the DM, you fail.
|
|
Not according to what Ixancoatl and Jonathon posted, IMO. They literally said 'if the number is high enough, I let it happen'. This is functionally no different than 'if you roll a 15 you succeed, if you roll a 5 it doesn't'. It doesn't matter how many skill points you put in, if the end number isn't impressive enough to the DM, you fail.
The point is, the skills in which you have training are important, as are the number of skill points.
If you look at what they're saying through a grognard filter (which I can), they're actually more concerned that modern players look at their sheet and won't TRY something because their character's collection of skills/feats/class features don't tell them they CAN try it.
It isn't so much that they're just happily fiating through the day, that they're disappointed the players they're running into won't think outside the sheet.
At least that's how I see the thrust if Ixit's lament.
|
|
Weren't these games originally designed to cater to a group of people with a broadened sense of Imagination?Considering the origins were firmly planted on the back of wargaming, no, I do not think so.
Actually, if they were satisfied with the limits wargaming put on their imaginations, our hobby probably wouldn't have been born. I think you're drawing the wrong inference there.
You may have something.
However, in the context of Ixancoatl's original post, I still stand by my opinion. If the Great Old Ones™ where throwing off the shackles¹ of rules, why were the rules still roughly as lengthy and complicated as war games? Rock/Paper/Scissors seems a likely and more intuitive method for resolving issues when Playing Pretend to craft stories between the next tactical set piece.
Rules light systems are just now having their Golden Age.
¹Hyperbole for effect
|
|
You may have something.
However, in the context of Ixancoatl's original post, I still stand by my opinion. If the Great Old Ones™ where throwing off the shackles¹ of rules, why were the rules still roughly as lengthy and complicated as war games? Rock/Paper/Scissors seems a likely and more intuitive method for resolving issues when Playing Pretend to craft stories between the next tactical set piece.
Rules light systems are just now having their Golden Age.
¹Hyperbole for effect
If you look past OD&D, AD&D 1e was pretty rules light. Other than about 20 pages of hard combat rules, the rest of the PHB and DMG aren't really rules. Mostly just stuff to flesh out a campaign, some esoteric stuff, lists, charts for random encounters, spell descriptions, class descriptions, stuff like that.
People turned to stuff like Rolemaster, Runequest, and the like because they wanted MORE rules than AD&D offered, adjudicating more situations. Or HERO. Or GURPS.
In '82, AD&D was pretty much the "rules light" fantasy game.
|
If the Great Old Ones™ where throwing off the shackles¹ of rules, why were the rules still roughly as lengthy and complicated as war games?
If you look past OD&D, AD&D 1e was pretty rules light.
I'm going to steal just the "rule" portions of my review of Swords & Wizardry: Complete Rulebook.
Creating a Character: Shows you how to fill in a character sheet, and gives a brief overview of what ability scores affect what. Explains the character classes, multi-classing and dual-classing, the races, the alignments (Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic), equipment, Armor Class, and Weight & Movement. For those who are interested, the available classes are: Assassin, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Magic-User, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, and Thief. 27 pages.How to Play: A quick review of non-combat mechanics. Gaining XP, Time, and Saving Throws are covered. 2 pages.
Combat: Here we cover initiative and the order of battle, the attack roll and attack tables, some specific situations, turning the undead, death and damage, healing, morale, alternate ascending AC rules, and a gameplay example. It's worth noting that there are quite a few options given for initiative and the order of battle, as the original game was rather unclear about this aspect of the game. 10.5 pages.
Special Combat Rules: This section covers mass combat, seige combat, aerial combat, and ship combat. 6 pages.
45.5 pages of crunch. And let's not ignore the fact that the biggest chunk of this is taken up by the descriptions of the classes, and another six pages is rules that see only very infrequent use. The most commonly used rules only take up 12.5 pages.
As for comparison to the war games which spawned them, it makes sense that the rules for RPGs would be somewhat more complex in some ways. War games only concerned themselves with combat...while RPGs take into account other things, such as exploration, social interaction, etc.
Bob the Cleric: I take a piss behind the tree.
GM: Roll a CON check.
Bob rolls a natural 1.
GM: You have failed to urinate, and your bladder ruptures. Take 1d6 CON damage and then make a Fort save vs infection.
Bob: Damn you, Pelor! Why must I always fumble urination checks?!?
A natural 1 does not an auto-fail skill check make.
We're going to need to know the DC of the piss check, and how many ranks in Urinate the player had.
On-topic, it seems clear from the various rules debate threads that many people enjoy the supposedly over-codified rules.
I removed a couple posts. Lets not make things personal.
Honestly, I don't think the d20 System is really all that rules heavy. Granted, it may not be the simplest system out there, but I was able to create my first character with just the rulebook, and nobody helping me. The only other system I've been able to do that with is the Savage Worlds system, so in my opinion, that's saying something.
Personally, I think systems whose rules are vague or incomplete are far worse than a system whose rules are well defined. I remember playing in a game (I believe it was the Palladium system), where one of the players decided to jump out of a plane some 20 feet off the ground. First thing we did was look up rules for falling damage... only to discover that there were no rules for falling damage. At that point, we were at a total loss as to what should happen next. Would the player's character take damage? Would he break his legs? What would even happen if he broke his legs? We had no idea. Ultimately, we decided to just use the rules for falling damage from D&D, because it was something we were all familiar with, and because the rules were clearly defined.
Now that's not to say that a rules heavy system can't detract from the gaming experience. I remember when I tried to play the Hero System, and how badly my head would spin during character creation as I looked up one ability after another- each of which referenced two other abilities, and was based on some god awful formula- only to forget what it was that I had originally looked up. All this for a system whose combat mechanic was laughably simple. But I digress.
Getting back to the d20 system, I think that the problem players and DMs have when they complain about the rules has more to with player behavior and not with the rules themselves. Too often, I've seen games grind to a halt because two players decide they want to take precious time away from the game in order to argue over a particular rule. The worst is when players and DMs argue over something that has nothing to do with what's happening in game. I can't tell you how many times I've found myself banging my head on the table, listening to two players argue over 3.5 grapple rules when nobody was even being grappled.
Honestly, I think the best thing you can do to stop this sort of nonsense is to have DMs make a call based on their current understanding of the rules, and then let someone look the rule up while the game continues. If that person discovers that the DM's ruling is in error, then that's the ruling you use in the future. In the meantime, the game goes on.
Get rid of all those pesky rules narrowing your imagination. :p
While I know you meant this as snark - thanks.
I had two people pay the donation for the rules, and my downloads on them spiked about the 27th-29th.
Have you actually tried them?
|
|
No, I've been too busy running Shackled City these last couple years to try out new styles. My players haven't exactly been the roleplaying thespians that would like rules-light either. :/
I am glad something good came from that post tho. Even if you tracking down the source feels Big Brotherish. :3
To quote Gygax:
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules"
You can play your game any way you like.
Outside of a few OCD RAW Nazis on these forums there are no RAW police that will kick your door down if you tweak the rules for your home campaign.
Back in my AD&D days, when there were no skills or feats to worry about so we would just improvise based on how tough the action sounded.
If it was an attack, it was a modified roll to hit.
(Things like: "I bash the giant in the toe with my warhammer to slow him down")
Other actions (non-attack) could have been a combination of rolls or just assigned a percentage chance of success by the DM followed by a percentile dice roll.
If a player stated that he wanted to "Kick the flaming brazier down the stairs to slow his pursuers then dive off the banister grabbing the tapestry and swing across the room to the exit" then the DM just decided how many rounds that would take, what rolls to make and what went wrong if the player failed (ie. the player missed his jump or the tapestry ripped because a fighter in full plate mail and full gear just weighs too much).
Don't get me wrong, I like having Feats and skills available, but I treat them as guidelines not absolutes. Consistency of decesions is more important than sticking to the RAW all the time.
Remember, if you let the rules run the game and not the DM, you might as well be playing Chess instead of a role playing game.
To quote Gygax:
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules"
You can play your game any way you like.
Outside of a few OCD RAW Nazis on these forums there are no RAW police that will kick your door down if you tweak the rules for your home campaign.Back in my AD&D days, when there were no skills or feats to worry about so we would just improvise based on how tough the action sounded.
If it was an attack, it was a modified roll to hit.
(Things like: "I bash the giant in the toe with my warhammer to slow him down")Other actions (non-attack) could have been a combination of rolls or just assigned a percentage chance of success by the DM followed by a percentile dice roll.
If a player stated that he wanted to "Kick the flaming brazier down the stairs to slow his pursuers then dive off the banister grabbing the tapestry and swing across the room to the exit" then the DM just decided how many rounds that would take, what rolls to make and what went wrong if the player failed (ie. the player missed his jump or the tapestry ripped because a fighter in full plate mail and full gear just weighs too much).
Don't get me wrong, I like having Feats and skills available, but I treat them as guidelines not absolutes. Consistency of decesions is more important than sticking to the RAW all the time.
Remember, if you let the rules run the game and not the DM, you might as well be playing Chess instead of a role playing game.
Having to remember what happened in similar encounters so as to be consistent from then on seems kind of hard. The rules make it so I don't have to remember a whole lot. I only think rules ruin the game when a DM has no idea what to do when a situation not covered up by the rules comes up so he freezes up.
One of the best things I eventually figured out-->It is important for people to remember there is not a rule for everything.
PS:I do realize you might have a better memory than I do. I have ruled differently in non rules covered situations, and not realized it until later.
I also agree with your post for the most part.
|
Get rid of all those pesky rules narrowing your imagination. :p
While I know you meant this as snark - thanks.
I had two people pay the donation for the rules, and my downloads on them spiked about the 27th-29th.
Have you actually tried them?
Three Donations. It's a hard sell for a group used to a mores structured ruleset.
No, I've been too busy running Shackled City these last couple years to try out new styles. My players haven't exactly been the roleplaying thespians that would like rules-light either. :/
I am glad something good came from that post tho. Even if you tracking down the source feels Big Brotherish. :3
Not quite 'big brotherish' - I get a monthly downloads report, and notification from PayPal when people make a donation. The downloads counter had a surge of links from this thread. The report popped into my inbox this morning.
Minimus tends to get a few random donations whenever it comes up in a discussion about differences in playstyles.
As a result of reading the discussion here, the GMing section got a (to me) rather redundant difficulty table. File was updated about 10 minutes ago.
(Characters can get skills up to about +12; they can also get situational bonuses based on details that average out to +3 to +6. Making the difficulty scale run from 8-28 means that the most skilled person in the world, getting a lot of help from his buddies, has a 50/50 chance of pulling off a DC of 28. Someone who is less skilled, but has some bennies to burn can do well too).
Having to remember what happened in similar encounters so as to be consistent from then on seems kind of hard. The rules make it so I don't have to remember a whole lot. I only think rules ruin the game when a DM has no idea what to do when a situation not covered up by the rules comes up so he freezes up.
One of the best things I eventually figured out-->It is important for people to remember there is not a rule for everything.
PS:I do realize you might have a better memory than I do. I have ruled...
This is why I like the +2/-2 rule for favorable and unfavorable conditions. I can remain consistent with most of my rulings without having to jot each one down.